New November Knits From Schooner House

Hey guys, once again I've been busy knitting myself silly. On the upside though I've figured out how to make fingerless gloves. They're my greatest creation since the slipper socks!

Mustard Yellow Fingerless Gloves

I also made a grey pair as a custom order for a lady in my neighbourhood and I've also been making some new quote cards...

Though Lovers Be Lost, Love Shall Not

Isn't Life A Terrible Thing, Thank God?

I've finally created a Facebook page for my Etsy shop Schooner House so if you like what you see, pop over and check it out. I'm trying to spread the message that there are so many of us independent makers and creators out there who are pouring all our time and energy into these handmade creations. So please think of us as you do your Christmas shopping this year!

Oh and I've finally finished that embroidery that I was doing for our friend Joeley. At times I did feel like going down to the seas again....and walking straight into it! Haha nah, I am glad it's finished though. Can't wait to see it when it's been framed.

oxoxo

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New Makes: Hand Knitted Slipper Socks

Hello all! I have a rather woolly, self promoting post for you today!

As, dare I say it, Christmas is approaching, I've been knitting myself silly! My latest product are these cute as hell slipper socks. They're little toasty toe warmers and are so fun to make. I've been making them with a bar strap across the ankle which fastens with a lovely little button. I just think they're so cute!

I'm hoping at least some of you will think the same! They're prefect little stocking fillers that the non knitters out there could even pass off as your own so if you're interested in these kinds of things I'd be very grateful if you'd consider mine. You can pop over and check them out at Schooner House.

Blue Speckled Slipper Socks

Orange Alpaca Wool Slipper Socks

Brown Slipper Socks

I'm in the process of knitting a fourth pair in a cream wool which should be lovely. Also, don't forget I've also got a few pairs of actual socks in the shop.

When I've not been knitting I've been working on an embroidery I've been commissioned to do. It's of the poem Sea Fever by John Masefield and it's fairly large as she wanted all three verses doing. I've just got to finish the border and put the title in and it'll be done, just in time hopefully! Here's a pic of my progress so far.

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Life Lately: October '15

Wow, crikey it's been a while! Kind of dropped off the radar a bit there didn't I?! I realise there have been a fair few Project 365's that I've missed since being back from our holiday and instead of trying to back date them all I'm going to bundle them into a 'Life Lately' post - I've not done one of these since just before moving into our first flat!

We had a charity bike ride at work (something I had to recruit everyone for as the 'Great Place To Work' rep) and well only me, Nia and the manager from our store actually did it so that shows how persuasive I am. Oh well, there were loads more from other stores doing it and it ended up being a really fun ride. I could get into it.

I've been busy knitting socks and putting them in my Etsy shop. Even though it's October it's actually been quite warm recently but we're still definitely in knit season! Here are a few of them from Schooner House. Check them out, I'd love to hear what you think.

  

We had a Macmillan coffee morning at work the other week and it was glorious. It was only for us colleagues rather than for customers too so there was loads of cake for days!

The whole family was invited round to my brother's house recently for what ended up being one hell of a family day as you can see! These are all my brothers and cousins and their wives and kids.

Look what a kind person from our neighbourhood was giving away! We had to recruit some friends to help us move it, one woman with a van and after taking two doors completely out of their frames we finally got it in. It's a bit out of tune but hell, it sounds good to me. I've actually been writing a lot lately and have so far conjured up two songs that I'm actually really happy with. I think I'm gonna go and record them when they're ready. 

That's pretty much all I can remember of what's happened since we've been back from Italy. If you didn't see our holiday photo's they're here and here. Other than that we've both just been working. I'm currently the baker as our permanent baker is off having reconstructive knee surgery and to be honest I'd rather be him than have to deal with ravenous students during a bloody cookie promotion! It's chaos trying to keep up!

oxoxo

Snapshots from October 2014

Hello November! Let us reminisce..

Oh God yeah, that 10k I did. Go me! Haven't actually run since then, oops.

Pretty pumpkins and squashes in at Sharrow Marrow.

I stopped working, got my phone and went outside to take this photo which, as lovely as it is, doesn't do it justice. Sky photos never do, do they!? But it was wonderful!

Visiting Beth in Loughborough where we recorded a whole album of terrible covers!

We ventured into Nottingham to see a poetry reading that neither of us were really moved by, too modern for us.
We saw some cool things while we were walking around though, check out the lovely Art Nouveau on that building and the big weird dish!
Also, Beth has this really cool plant on her kitchen window sill. It's a False Shamrock and in the daytime it's purple petals open out and then fold back into little triangles at night. So cool.

Re stocked my cards in their little box in Bird's Yard in town. Check 'em out.

Mum had the big 61. 10th of the 10th at 10 past 10!

At last! Parsnips are back in which means homely parsnip soup on a cold evening.

Got all the decorations up!

..and made some new ones!

And finally, Halloween itself. I was going to go as Pat Garrett but it turns out the event we went to had a '40's theme with a halloween twist'. Oh my it was amazing, such a good night. A bunch of us got bee-hived (not very 40's but oh well) and went to a secret gig to see Rob Heron And The Tea Pad Orchestra. These guys blew me away. Pokey LaFarge meets Blind Willie McTell and they looked the part too!

You should definitely check them out.

In Other News

I'm going to arrange an induction at the Sheffield Print Club when I've got a free weekend. I've got loads of ideas for prints I want to do so I'll hopefully get going with that this month.

Hope you've had a grand time too!

oxoxo

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Snapshots from September 2014

Well where the hell did September go? It seems like it was only just the height of summer and yet somehow we're all of a sudden talking about Christmas!? 

Anyhoo here's a roundup of September's snapshots..

Went on a really foggy run on Blacka Moor. Very eerie, perfect conditions to be murdered in. Safe to say I ran fast. You can see my activity on Strava.

Terribly naughty snacks.

Prickly Tits from Syd + Mallory's!

Had a blast at West Yorkshire Print Workshop, thanks Ben! You can see what I got up to on day one, two and three.

Transformed a man's shirt into a ladies vest top more on that soon.

Discovered a very stylish new bar/restaurant/deli in town called Anchorage with the girls from work. You should check it out!

And lastly another shot from another run at Blacka Moor, on a much clearer day.

One more thing!
Guys, big news. My cards can now be found in Bird's Yard in the city centre! Yeah! They've got loads of cool quirky things in there, you should go in and have a look and buy my cards!!

Some more good news, I've had my days swapped at work so for the first time in 4 years I no longer work Sundays! Woo I have the weekends off like normal people!

And lastly, I've seen so many projects that other bloggers have been doing that look so fun and inspiring, so I've been looking for some that I can do. So starting in October I'm gonna do the weekly colour project. Pretty self explanatory, each week you have to photograph different things of one colour. You can challenge yourself to think outside the box and improve your photography skills.


I'd love to hear suggestions of other projects to start! :)

oxoxo

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Print Workshop Day Three: Lino + Screen Printing

Hey guys! Hope you've been having a good weekend. I have so far and not just because I don't work Sunday's anymore (wooo!). Mine's been quite full up to now, I've been to a clothes up-cycle evening that I mentioned not so long ago more about that later on. I'm also about to go on a final run to train for the 10k I'm doing next Sunday more on that later too!

Today though I want to tell you all about the final day of printing I did yesterday at the print workshop. They definitely saved the best for last!

Lino

This was sooo fun because it's so easy and you almost always get a good result.  

It's very simple. We carved out our image from a piece of lino and inked it up. For this though, we didn't use a press where the plate and the paper would go through big rollers. We did it on a huge cast iron imperial press which lowered a large block onto them to print the image. 

This was my attempt and you can see a really nice grainy-ness on the print which happened by accident because I carved into the rough side of the lino rather than the smooth side. I'm glad I did!

Screen Printing

This was so interesting to do. There's so much preparation goes into getting the screen ready (coating the screen in a light sensitive emulsion, exposing it to uv light..) and then the printing part only takes a few seconds! It's really fun to do though.

We made a few backgrounds that we would print our image onto at the end. We did these by creating paper stencils of various shapes and printing them. It was a good way of getting to grips with the technique before printing our artwork that we'd brought in.

This one above I abandoned because I accidentally printed the blue waves over the green waves but now I'm looking at it again I actually like how it turned out!

The artwork I chose for my screen was one of my card designs from my own range. This below is it as a stencil on a screen after the whole UV hoo haa.

To be honest what I'm most excited about screen printing onto is a tote bag! Now I can proudly display my own design, printed by my own hands!

I'm so glad to have been to these classes. I now can see so many opportunities to re-invent my designs and all the ways I could print them. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you're curious about printing at all you should definitely get yourself signed up for some classes. You wont regret it!

So who else has been creative this weekend?

oxoxo